Today is a bad day.

I went in to get med refills, but I couldn't afford them because the fucking free doctor prescribed them wrong. So I haven't had my meds for a week. Went to get the correct ones today, and they were $40.

Awesome. So I had to do a walk in I didn't mean to do. Got the meds prescribed for the third fucking time, and I was so stressed out I left without ever picking them up.

Went back to pick up my meds, was going to celebrate with a vape. Vape mod is missing. I look for it everywhere. It's gone. I lost it somewhere in all the stress of trying to save $40.

This is the poverty tax. To save $40, I lost $80. It is the snake that eats itself.

Also I have a second job interview next week. Unfortunately I also have agoraphobia, and my vape was my safety signal.

I'm freaking out and I need to replace it now. I will do anything to replace it. But to prevent myself from engaging in desperate, self-destructive acts, I'm going to have to require myself to do nothing.

I'm so fucked. I was getting $100 from a friend soon and none of it matters because I can never get ahead and begging for scraps kills my fucking soul.

So I'm begging. Because a soul can't live without a body, and I've been a body without a soul long enough.

No GFM. This is an emergency. If I have to wait, I might as well go inpatient and fuck both job interviews.

https://cash.app/$CeruleanArc
https://venmo.com/joanburgos

P.S. Oh and next week I'll need new Adderall. So this is all hell. I get $20, it's gone. Beg for more. If you have anything, please spare me more hell. I am so close, but I'm so tired too. I can't take much more of this. At this point I feel like I'd lose less self esteem finding people to fuck me for money on Craigslist.

#MutualAid #TransJoy #PovertyTax #Agoraphobia #MedicalAbuse #Disability #EmergencyAid #Venmo #CashApp #ButlerPA #Pittsburgh #LPC #SupportArtists #MutualAidRequest

This is weird.

It's weird because I'm feeling better, and that means that I have the spoons to ASK for something. And moreover, this is an ask that, despite my own unwillingness to validate my own needs, is WORTH asking.

THE PROBLEM

I have $15 in my bank account.

Tonight at midnight, my boyfriend performs as a DJ for the FIRST TIME EVER in front of a live audience. People tell me "don't worry; he'll DJ again," but as there is no objective moment in history where he will EVER perform again FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, my intellect is incapable of seeing "he'll DJ again" as anything other than a platitude. Akin to telling someone their loved one died "for a reason."

Cool. Fuck whoever came up with the reason then, you know? :P

I just know for a fact that I have performed alone when I believed that I had friends. And while when your self-esteem is fine these two things facts do not, in combination destroy you, I can't imagine anyone finds it a blast to not have anyone there at your back when it'd be coolest of all to have them there.

My boyfriend is performing in Erie, PA. It is two hours away from me, and so my only way to get there (both at this point or at any other point under present conditions) is to rent a vehicle via Zipcar, which permits me to borrow a vehicle for a reasonable amount of time for only $150.

Zipcar includes gas via a paycard in the driver's visor, so there would be no additional charges there. Furthermore, since it functions more like a subscription service than a car rental service, there are no fucking surprise "$600 we-picked-up-this-one-dog-hair-for-ya" fees as with Budget, who I continue to hate despite their having refunded me that fee.

I don't have a key to get back into the place where I am staying, though, so I'd have to rent the car until at least 7–8am for approx. $170, despite the fact that I won't be driving for the final few hours of that rental period. Effectively, I would require the car from 10pm tonight, when I use it to drive to Erie, until 8am tomorrow morning, when I can re-enter the space where I am able to stay.

THE ASK

$200 would be a fucking miracle to me tonight. I could literally make tonight a dream come true, and I could have an experience with an intimate and dearly beloved partner that no one, not even me, will EVER be able to share with them again.

$160 could potentially get me there and back, and it would be the absolute minimum I'd need in my bank account to OK the trip for myself. It would be a risk, but one potentially well-worth taking.

Anything less would not make this trip any less prohibitive to someone with my ability to have any control over my own fate. But it would make my life ever so slightly easier when--the day after tomorrow--I return to my doctor's office for new meds to replace the ones I've been without for weeks.

THANK YOU

I truly don't expect to go see my boyfriend tonight. For weeks now, I've accepted the fact that I do not get to do things like these that other people take for granted. I just, finally--and just for a little bit--maybe have the spoons to beg someone to make things different tonight.

This is tonight, so GFM is bad for this:
• https://venmo.com/joanburgos
• https://cash.app/$CeruleanArc
• Chime Sign: $EllisArcwolf

The "Chime Sign" is only usable internally by folks who have a Chime bank account, but it's the fastest and most direct transfer method to my primary account.

THE FUTURE

January 6th. The license. Dear gods, I resent the fact of having been made to wait and to suffer this long for it so much, and whether or not I get the license, I cannot imagine when I will ever see the PA State Board as anything but cruel and apathetic to the plight of any REAL human being. Which is a sad thing to think about the board in charge of THERAPISTS for a state, but I can't help what I think about a board that has ONLY EVER shown me that's exactly who they are.

When Pinocchio claims to be a real boy, and his nose only grows longer and more artificially cylindrical in response, I feel like I'd be a fool if I believed him anyway. And until not that recently, I absolutely would have despite all evidence to the contrary because I have never ONCE found that my ability to be kind to others has magically and generously extended to include me.

#MutualAid #TransJoy #Zipcar #EriePA #Pittsburgh #SupportArtists #FirstGig #Venmo #CashApp #Chime #QueerJoy #LPCReciprocity #EmergencyFund #ButlerPA

RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@EllisArcwolf/115788959110082500

Earning My Internet "Keep"

I haven’t just been waiting for the bureaucratic gears to turn; I’ve been rewriting the history of the Fifth Astral Era.

To keep my brain sharp (and frankly, to stave off the crushing weight of waiting for the license that has taken forever), I’ve been deep-diving into my adaptation of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (The Tragedy of Ĵulŷs Kæsar). But I realized that for the specific Fifth Astral Era history I’m targeting for Morvelet's writing career, Early Modern English wasn’t archaic enough for him to have written his plays in.

So, I did what any reasonable lore fanatic would do: I rewrote the "You blocks, you stones" speech from Act I, Scene 1 in Middle Eorzean (think Chaucer meets FFXIV): "Ye blockes, ye stones, ye duller than bestaille! / O ye harde hertes, ye felouns of Allage..."

See more at my diegetic Taper Project website: https://taper-project.jijivisa.org/

I am proving to myself—and to the world—that even when I am at rock bottom, my capacity to create complex, layered, and incisive art is untouched. I can do anything.

The Reality Check

But while I can rewrite iambic pentameter, I cannot rewrite the cost of living.

I am currently in Pittsburgh, fighting to secure transitional housing. To stay safe and healthy until my license arrives—if all goes according to the latest plan I've been made to believe is "The Plan"—on January 6, 2026. To make that happen, I need to clear some obstacles in my path:

• The "Impact Fee": My host has been incredibly generous, but my presence has spiked their utility costs. I need to help cover a $421 electric bill to ensure I am not a burden on the lifeboat that saved me. There's still most of it to cover. I've received about $150 in the past two weeks, which was barely enough to make ends meet and get my phone back prior to a job interview I had on Thursday.
• Meds: I need to refill my Bupropion (depression meds). Now I'll also have to refill my Venlafaxine. Couldn't make it to Pittsburgh today for an important doctor's appointment because I couldn't leave Butler on account of the expense and my current fiscal destitution.
• Transit & Logistics: Getting to the interview and navigating the city requires funds I currently do not have. More than you'd think, as the ONLY place I've YET found to live is where I'm staying now, an hour (two by bus) and a once-a-day bus schedule away from Pittsburgh.

I really wish I could live in Pittsburgh, but I don't have the money to buy a local bus ticket right now, and the frequency of donations have proved my dream of finding a place on the generosity of strangers quite silly. For now, I just need to be able to get around so I can resolve things until I can make my own money to get a place to live in Pittsburgh. Still need help to get there.

The Ask

I am begging you to invest in the person who can turn trauma into Chaucerian verse. Help me clear these immediate hurdles so I can nail upcoming interviews, get my LPC license finalized, and finally have a room of my own to write Julius Caesar's sequel.

• https://www.gofundme.com/f/ellis-emergency-fund
• https://venmo.com/joanburgos
• https://cash.app/$CeruleanArc

Thank you for being the audience that keeps the lights on.

#FFXIV #FinalFantasyXIV #FFXIVLore #CreativeWriting #Shakespeare #Linguistics #Chaucer #WorldBuilding #MutualAid #Crowdfunding #Poverty #HousingInsecurity #Pittsburgh #ButlerPA #AuDHD #Disability #MentalHealth

Today I met a dog who had freed himself. He had snapped the link binding his collar to a ground leash. He was lovely, sweet, and playing with my dog, Riko. But he had zero tags.

I tried to do the right thing. I tailed him, let him and Riko play, and as they did I called every animal "help" organization in Butler, Pennsylvania. Not a single one answered.

Finally, I called the police. They told me there were "no beds" for that dog and they couldn't do anything at all. Then they asked the question that broke me: "Are you willing to care for the dog?"

With what money? I told him. I'd literally just paid the City of Butler $1.50—every penny I had—to take a bus to a transfer just to run a basic errand. I have zero dollars. I am homeless. I cannot help myself, let alone a dog the City of Butler can't be bothered to budget for.

I have the will, but no means. Butler has the means, but no will.

A city must ever turn its face toward its god. For Butler, that god is Money. You see it in how they recently severed their bus system from Pittsburgh’s to hoard fare revenue, stranding people like me for an hour at a time (whenever a bus "decides" not to come). You see it in how they leave living beings to suffer because saving them doesn't turn a profit.

The dog I was forced to leave behind was a Pit Bull. He had healed scar tissue around his muzzle. I'm no precog, but I know what happens to stray pits with muzzle scars. I am disgusted with a world that forces those of us who want to help to stand by helplessly because we are broke, while the institutions meant to help protect only their wallets.

Y'all could make me feel a little better about the world by giving me more power to have an effect on it. Because I really fucking wish I could've kept that sweet dog instead of leaving him to die.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/ellis-emergency-fund
http://cash.app/$CeruleanArc
https://venmo.com/joanburgos

#MutualAid #ButlerPA #AnimalWelfare #SystemicFailure #Poverty #Agoraphobia #PitBull #Capitalism #Disability #AuDHD

P.S. No picture. I was horribly harried while hopelessly hustling help and hewing my head over the horrendous hindsight that I could do haught for the hapless hound.

P.P.S. Sorry. I alliterate when I'm upset.

P.P.P.S. Why do I have agoraphobia? This. This is fucking why I have agoraphobia. Some bad shit is ALWAYS happening, and I'm somehow the only one that ever seems to notice or care, and it's EXHAUSTING. 😭

The Quiet Unraveling of the Man Who Almost Killed Trump

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/us/thomas-crooks-trump-shooter-butler-rally.html

The New York Times Wins 4 Pulitzer Prizes

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/business/media/pulitzer-prize-winners.html

Trump Assassination Task Force Visits Butler as Right Wing Promises ‘Parallel’ Inquiry

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/us/politics/trump-assassination-task-force-visits-site.html

5 Secret Service Agents Involved in Trump Rally Are Reassigned

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/23/us/politics/secret-service-trump-shooting.html

Secret Service Pulls From Biden’s Protective Team to Guard Trump

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/15/us/trump-secret-service.html